Justice Pazaratz Blasts Father for Using Mother’s Sexy Selfies in Court

by familyllb on May 1, 2017

Justice Pazaratz Blasts Father for Using Mother’s Sexy Selfies in Court

Recently I’ve highlighted some of the rulings by the often-outspoken Ontario Superior Court Justice Pazaratz. The decision in S. (J.) v M. (M.) is the next in line, and involves Justice Pazaratz lambasting the father in a custody battle for filing inappropriate materials with the court as part of the parties’ custody battle. Specifically, he filed sexually-explicit selfies that he had retrieved from the mother’s discarded cell phone, among other salacious images and text.

In a sharply-worded preface to his finding that the irrelevant and scandalous materials did nothing to assist the father in his interim custody determination, Justice Pazaratz focused on the impact of his conduct from the child’s perspective, and on the needlessly-hurtful approach to the parents’ litigation.

Justice Pazaratz wrote:

Do nude pictures of parents help judges decide who should get custody?

A silly question?

Why then, on this motion for temporary custody, has the Applicant father attached to his affidavit a series of sexually explicit “selfies” of the mother, retrieved from her discarded cell phone?

And why did he attach dozens of screen shots of the mother “sexting” with another man, describing her sexual preferences in graphic detail?

If the objective was to humiliate the mother, undoubtedly the father succeeded.

But how does humiliation help in family court?

How does irrelevant and scandalous information help a judge determine the best interests of the child?

More importantly — from the child’s perspective — what is the long-term impact of this needlessly hurtful approach to litigation?

a. How will this family ever heal?

b. How will the parents ever again be able to get along?

c. Can cheap shots ever be forgiven?

Justice Pazaratz also lamented the lack of decorum and privacy sensitivity by Family litigants:

Separating parents are already in crisis. Our court process can either make things better or worse. And our success will hinge in part on our ability to address the modern realities of technology and social media.

Between e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, texts and selfies — privacy and discretion seem a thing of the past. These days there’s no shortage of really embarrassing stuff couples can dredge up against one another — if that’s really the path we want to encourage.

But what about relevance (never mind dignity)?

Finally, in his customary blunt manner, Justice Pazaratz summed up his impressions of the father’s “cheap shot” tactics this way:

… [W]here behaviour is neither unusual, illegal nor disputed, there’s no need to inflame tensions by attaching texts and pictures that tell us nothing we need to know.

In this case, a fundamental evidentiary issue relates to the father’s unauthorized use of the mother’s discarded cell phone.

But more to the point, the nude photographs and salacious texts submitted by the father merely confirm what I would suspect of most other adults on this planet: The mother has a sex life.

At Russell Alexander, Family Lawyers our focus is exclusively family law, offering pre-separation legal advice and assisting clients with family related issues including: custody and access, separation agreements, child and spousal support, division of family property, paternity disputes, and enforcement of court orders. For more information, visit us at RussellAlexander.com